University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

Page 13 text:

DEDICATION TO PROFESSOR CHARLES HENRY FERNALD FOR HIS BRILLIANT ACHIEVEMENTS AS A SCHOLAR, AND HIS KIND, DEVOTED ATTENTION AS A TEACHER, WE DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.

Page 15 text:

1 M Charles Henry Fernald. A. M., Ph. D. ROFESSOR CHARLES HENRY FERNALD belongs to that class of men who have arrived at prime old age, leaving behind them a life made up of brilliant scholarly accomplish- ments and noble, generous efforts to uplift mankind. In pass- ing over the lives of such men we seem to hear the command, Go thou and do likewise. In reviewing, even in a brief ' ay, the life and work of Professor Fernald, we are taught by example the noble lesson of honest, persistent endeavor. He was born March i6, 1838, on Mt. Desert Lsland, off the coast of Maine. His father owned a large farm in Hancock County, Me., situated on the southern coast of the island at the mouth of Somes Sound, and on this farm Professor Fernald spent his youth, attending school about two months during the winter and six weeks in the summer, until he was sixteen years of age, after which time he spent his summers at sea and his winters teaching in the public schools. In his early life he was ambitious to become a sea captain, and, while he was still very young, began to educate and fit himself for that profession, tak- ing up by himself many studies not taught in the public schools of that time; and, with some assistance from his uncle, he studied navigation and learned the use of nautical instruments. During the time he followed the sea he filled every position on ship-board, passing through the grades of ' sailor before the mast, cook, steward, second-mate, first-mate, sailing master, and was prepared to take command at the age of twenty-one; but he decided to go to a high grade school to fit himself more fully for the duties of a ship-master. Accordingly he went to the Maine Wesleyan Seminary and Female College, where he found himself associated with three huridred or more students, and for the first time in his life realized what was meant by an educational atmosphere. This so influenced him that he immediately decided to fit for college, and changed his whole line of study with the intention of entering Bowdoin College as a Junior. Two years afterward the Rebellion broke out and all his class-mates went into the army. As he had been a sailor, he preferred the navy and enlisted as a seaman. He first went on board the U. S. S. Housatonic, but during his term of service served on nearly every grade of ship in the navy. Sfiortly after enlisting he was appointed master ' s mate, and a year later passed his examination and was pro- moted to the rank of ensign. At one time he was on the monitor Patapsco as w ard-room officer with the late Rear Admiral Sampson, then a lieutenant, who